Obama may seek additional funds to battle Islamic State

President Obama heads to Martha's Vineyard

Pete Marovich / Bloomberg

President Obama and his daughter, Malia, walk past onlookers as they board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House. Obama is traveling back to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts to resume his vacation.

President Obama and his daughter, Malia, walk past onlookers as they board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House. Obama is traveling back to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts to resume his vacation. (Pete Marovich / Bloomberg)

U.S. military considers taking fight against Islamic State into Syria

President Barack Obama, soon to end a two-week working vacation in Martha's Vineyard, has not yet been presented with military options for attacking Islamic State targets beyond two important areas in Iraq, said White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes.

However, according to a congressional aide, Obama could ask Congress in the coming weeks to approve new funds for airstrikes against Islamic State targets.

The United States is considering taking the fight against Islamic State militants into Syria after days of airstrikes against the group in Iraq and the beheading of an American journalist, the White House signaled on Friday.

A Senate Democratic aide on Friday said the Obama administration could detail by early to mid-September the amount of additional money it wants for the military operations, although the aide did not estimate the size of the possible funding request.

The Senate aide, who asked not to be identified, said additional funding for military operations over Iraq and Syria is likely to be one of a few unrelated spending matters Congress could debate in September, after returning from a five-week summer recess.

The sophistication, wealth and military might of Islamic Statemilitants represent a major threat to the United States that may surpass that once posed by al Qaeda, U.S. military leaders said on Thursday."They are an imminent threat to every interest we have, whether it's in Iraq or anywhere else,"...

(Reuters)

When Congress returns to Washington on Sept. 8 it will face a series of budget challenges, including whether to provide additional funds to deal with a surge of Central American youths trying to enter the United States illegally. Congress also will try to approve temporary funds to keep the government operating in the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1.

Any request for more military funds could be coupled with the other budget requests.

The U.S. effort against Islamic State thus far has been relatively limited. U.S. forces have conducted more than 90 airstrikes in Iraq to protect the Iraqi Yazidi religious minority and attack Islamic State positions around the Mosul Dam.

Extending the fight into Syria would allow opportunities for disrupting the group's supply lines. Republican Senator John McCain said this week that Islamic State fighters have moved military equipment seized in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul into Syria and that they hold enclaves in Syrian territory that have been identified.

Democratic Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, earlier this week said, "We have to continue to take the fight to ISIS, not only in Iraq but in Syria as well."

A move into Syria, even only with air power, would be a reversal for Obama. He stepped back from a threat to launch airstrikes in Syria a year ago in response to a chemical weapons attack against civilians it blamed on forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Time and time again over the past year, Obama has rejected greater involvement in the three-year-old Syrian civil war out of concern about getting entangled in a conflict with no clear positive outcome for the United States.

But officials say the situation now is different because Islamic State militants represent a direct threat to Americans and American interests. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Thursday that Islamic State cannot be defeated without addressing the part of the group that is based in Syria.

U.S. forces have already had one direct ground engagement with Islamic State militants in Syria. The White House said this week that a rescue mission this summer aimed at securing the freedom of Foley, Sotloff and a handful of other American hostages led to a firefight in which a number of militants were killed. The hostages were not at the location.

The United States is taking the Islamic State militants far more seriously now than it did six months ago, when Obama told the New Yorker magazine that they were the "JV team," which is short for "junior varsity" and means they are not the best players on the field.

"We will do what's necessary to protect Americans and see that justice is done for what we saw with the barbaric killing of Jim Foley. So we're actively considering what's going to be necessary to deal with that threat, and we're not going to be restricted by borders," Rhodes said.

Rhodes said the group is far more dangerous now than it was six months ago.